Why is it hard to scale up SaaS marketing?

Because it’s not self-explanatory. Like, at all.

Marketing Is An Art
Marketing is an art. There’s a set of principles, sure, but it’s up to the artist (i.e. marketer) to apply them in a way that leads to success. Just like a painter applies principles like color theory and perspective to come up with a beautiful painting, so do marketers apply principles like lead nurturing and persuasive copywriting to generate business.

The problem is that the application of these principles, just like with painting, changes depending on the painting you’re wanting to paint. I think every marketer that’s worked at two or more companies realizes that it’s different every time around.

Which principles and techniques are you going to use for this company? For this market? How will you apply them? It’s one thing to decide on lead nurturing, but how do you decide on email content? Spacing of time between emails? Etc etc.

Changing Your Painting
Now, to take this analogy even further. Let’s say you’ve painted about a quarter of your painting. You’ve sketched out your layout, you’ve started laying down the first layers… and then you decide that you want something really different.

This is part of the difficulty that trying to scale SaaS marketing faces! The customers you were targeted during your scrappy start-up phase are not the same customers you’ll target as you move up market. Gone are the days of early adopters and pioneers – once you move into mainstream, you most likely will change your marketing message, your tone of voice, your materials…

It’s like changing your entire painting while you’re busy painting it.

Personnel Problems
Which doesn’t even touch on the personnel problems. If you want to scale, you need more people. But which people? As Gino Wickman says in his awesome book “Traction”, you’ve got to get the right people into the right seats. Those seats are different every time!

Bottom Line
Bottom line… there is a LOT you can get wrong in scaling your SaaS Marketing (or marketing, in general). It’s no longer the days of Mad Men, where a piece of art and a catchy tag phrase were enough to start reeling in the big bucks. Today is the day of sophisticated marketing systems, with choosy buyers and fierce competition for their attention.

But you know what? It’s worth it. And it’s fun whenever you do figure something out that works. 🙂

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Sarah Augustinsky

Marketing Automation Expert and Consultant